Enterprises looking to deliver mobile applications to their clients, customers, or other end-users face many obstacles. Often millions of dollars are spent either with in-house development teams or third-party contractors to develop and deliver native, mobile applications to the popular marketplaces (for example, Google® Play, iStore, and Apple Store®) often building separate versions for web and tablets. As an example, a particular type of cloud-hosted app may require tens or even hundreds of iterations to accommodate different operating systems (iOS, Android®, etc.). Further, because the organizations are not in the business of delivering technology products of this nature, they require substantial time and resources merely to get the apps to market. Once published in the existing marketplaces, the business further has the challenge of maintaining and updating the app both in response to operating system changes that create bugs or responding to user feedback and otherwise continuing to develop and deliver value to end-users in a timely manner.
In turn, “white label” app (i.e., multi-tenant app) providers offer enterprise-specific apps, for example multi-party mortgage applications to multiple separate businesses or entities. However, user experience and app quality suffer because of the inefficiencies inherent in maintaining multi-tenant apps or multiple business-specific apps.
The present disclosure seeks to remedy these and other problems by providing for a marketplace whereby enterprises or small/midsize businesses can select an app, such as the “Vault” described as an example below, provide the necessary information required to customize and brand a core application, and deliver it to their end-users on a service basis directly through a subdomain on their site, all without having to create a new instance of the core application. From there, the organization can expect to benefit from regular updates and improvements to the application by its developer(s), including the introduction of new features, that are automatically deployed with no downtime or need to involve IT, and with no updates or installs or other actions required by the end user of the application to utilize the new version. Further, by the methods described herein additional efficiencies are realized by app developers in that only one build of code must be supported, rather than multiple builds for multiple separate entities.
As a non-limiting example, online data storage and service provision, including cloud-based data storage and service hosting, is an important component of a variety of enterprises. In the specific context of enterprises such as estate planning, for example, secure cloud storage of important documents such as deeds, insurance policies, tax returns, estate planning documents, etc. provides a safe, reliable method of keeping such documents without requiring physical storage space, reducing risk of damage of physical copies of same. This need for secure, convenient cloud-based storage in virtual “safety deposit boxes” extends to innumerable other enterprise and indeed individual endeavors, for example photo storage, legal documents, banking statements and related documents, and others.
It is important to any enterprise to be able to provide a recognizable, “branded” look and feel to any and all of its goods and services, including cloud-hosted services. As with any service, such branding aids in ensuring customer recognition, loyalty, etc. That is, Enterprise X, when offering a service as a secure, cloud-based app (as non-limiting examples, an online storage system such as a virtual safety deposit box, a mortgage app, an online banking app, an employee intranet app, and others) wants to provide such a system that includes a user interface or other means that is instantly recognizable to a customer as being Enterprise X-specific, much as a customer would instantly know that she is accessing and using a physical safety deposit box provided by a brick and mortar enterprise. The enterprise could go to the trouble and expense of creating such a “branded” cloud-based storage system itself or commissioning a developer to create one. Smaller enterprises in particular may not be willing or able to incur the expense of developing and maintaining a dedicated, “one-off” online storage system for their enterprise.
Today, businesses creating cloud-based solutions typically also require a mobile app to supplement a web-based product. This requires, however, cost and support for additional mobile apps (for example, iStore & Google Play) in addition to maintaining the web-based product. Even when upfront costs are manageable, the cost to maintain, fix bugs, improve, etc. is cost prohibitive for most small businesses. And even for larger businesses, the complexity and time delays of depending on third parties to approve and implement changes can be not only challenging but simply a roadblock too many companies aren't willing to maneuver around.
Another problem relates to new releases of mobile app technology releases, i.e. upgrades, by third parties such as Google and/or Apple, or white label app companies in the business of selling such apps. When upgrades occur, the third parties typically do not ask business owners with apps on their platform whether they have built in their apps the programming necessary to anticipate the updates. This means an update could leave a mobile app user of a business suddenly unable to effectively operate the business owner's mobile app. So, in addition to issues of time and cost, by use of mobile apps a business is subjecting its business reputation on technology that such business cannot dictate or otherwise control.
One potential solution is a Progressive Web App, which can address the above-summarized issues of cost and dependency of current mobile apps offered by third parties such as Google and Apple. The problem, however, is that if a business is dependent upon creating its own Web App, the cost is likely going to dictate that certain functionalities of a Web App may only be financially feasible to larger organizations that have the resources to develop and maintain their own native Web App.
For these and other reasons, there is a need for a cloud-based, enterprise-customizable (i.e. “branded”) multi-tenant service interface which can automatically provide the enterprise-branded look and feel of the user interface presented to a user of the system. The presently described cloud-based enterprise-customizable service interface satisfies this need in the art by providing a cross-platform application that functions in most respects like a native app on mobile devices but is also designed to deliver an optimized experience on desktop, tablet, and other computing devices, or for that matter any computing device having internet access.
Further, by use of a common platform which is automatically customizable according to the identity of an enterprise as will be detailed below, simultaneous availability to/use by multiple enterprises is advantageously made possible, while still presenting an individually enterprise-branded front to a user, all from a single build of code. By use of the system described below, enterprises are able to overcome the challenges described above by delivering cross-platform applications directly through their website to the end-users which are maintained by a third-party dedicated to supporting and improving that application and ultimately to use said application to promote customer loyalty, customer interactions with the enterprise, and marketing opportunities between the enterprise and the customer are improved and enhanced.
The methods described herein provide for compiling a user interface and enterprise-specific application after an enterprise is identified as set forth below in a manner specific to that enterprise, such as by providing enterprise-specified style and branding, all from a single build of the application and without requiring the end-user to install or otherwise download the application from a native app store. Further, the present disclosure details the cloud-based services utilized to deliver that enterprise-specific application to the enterprise's end-users (the enterprise or businesses clients, customers or employees) while requiring only nominal effort on the part of that organization's information technology (IT) group. Still more, unlike prior art methods for delivering a single app to multi-tenants each with their own end-users, the present disclosure describes methods providing for multi-tenancy without the end-user even being aware they are using a multi-tenant (also known as a “white label”) application.